Rain Barrel Platform

You may recall that we put together our rain barrel in July of 2008 and added a pump and sink in June of 2009. I LOVE that rain barrel. The pump allows me to water the garden and the greenhouse plants uphill from where the rain barrel resides. It does a wonderful job.

Even though the barrel holds 305 gallons, it was quickly filled with our very wet spring last year. 305 gallons weighs in at approximately 2400 pounds – something we didn’t consider when we built the original platform. As a result, the barrel collapsed on one side.

It still worked just fine, but it really bothered Bernie. So we disconnected the barrel from the down spouts, and because it’s been so dry for so long, I managed to drain the barrel the past week. Bernie and I decided to work on a new platform for it today. This is the barrel upside down – you can see the area that collapsed pretty clearly.

Mirrie and Georgia came out to help for a while – not with the rain barrel platform, but with clearing some undergrowth next to the woods.

Bernie laid out cinder blocks for the foundation, and then he laid down some 4X4s.

He put some OSB on top of the 4X4s and nailed them in place.

After sitting in the sun, the barrel became a little more pliable, and we were able to push out the area that was collapsed. Then we used the power washer to clean the inside of the barrel.

We put it up on the platform, but didn’t completely hook it back up. We are leaving it open to air out completely. We’ll finish it up in the next few days.

Even though I was fine with it as it was before, I’m really much happier with the rain barrel now. It sits up higher so i can easily fit watering cans under the spigot if I need to.

Angie, B ordered it online, but it’s been so long he can’t remember from where. He said he’d look. He found it in the clearance section of the website – the shipping was almost as much as the cost of the barrel – and the whole thing came to just over $100. We wanted a large barrel, and after shopping around we realized we couldn’t find a better deal than that. He said he’ll try and find the site for you. You may need to visit it regularly to find what you want on clearance. It was worth it to us!

Chai Chai – it would have to be a very deep freeze for a very, very long time to freeze 305 gallons. Some of it does freeze – but we’ve not had the whole thing freeze and I don’t think we will in this area. Because it doesn’t freeze solid, it doesn’t expand. What it DID do was collapse on one side from the weight of all that water. We should have accounted for that. But we just didn’t really realize the water would weigh over 1 ton when the barrel was filled! With the new platform the weight of the water will be better distributed and there should be no more issues with collapsing. Even though the barrel is a dark green, there is still algae that grows in it. I wouldn’t use it for drinking water for my animals. But I do use it to wash their dishes and to water gardens. You could add clorox or oxine to sanitize it, but I just tote drinking water to the animals.

Okay, so I love the idea of a rain barrel. Sadly, we wont get more than about 5to 7 inches of rain here per year….soooo, Im thinking it wont really benefit me too much. Now, In IL I could have used one…but then in IL we didnt have any trees….so I could have had a rain barrel, but no trees…here I have trees….lol. Im cracking myself up here.

But what I want to know is why that very fancy platform is slanted like that? Is that so you can get more water out of that barrel when it gets low?

I would have rain barrels. Heck, I would have a rain water collection system for the whole house if not for two things: We don’t always get a lot of rain, and we don’t have one gutter on the whole house.
Can B. build anything? He cooks and lets you have any animal you want. Does have have a gene for those attributes that we can slip into my hubby’s coffee?

Frugalmom – believe it or not, that platform is level! It’s just a little hilly here…..

Kelly – Told Angie, check out plastic-mart.com Bernie says keep an eye on the “clearance” and the “yard sale” area. He said he watched it for a month or so before finding our barrel. The barrel he got is normally around $250 – but he found it (he thinks in the “yard sale” area) on a super sale and even with shipping it wasn’t much over $100.